Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/58

 about and keep at it between meals to the last second.”

“If I can’t do a man’s work you can pay me a boy’s pay,” entreated Stanley. “Surely, my labor would be worth something.”

“That’s the boy of it; you don’t examine into things. Only so many men can work around a lumber pile, or pass pulp squares into a car. You’d take up as much room as an able-bodied man without doing the man’s work. It ain’t what we call economy. If you had a boss that could only pull a colt’s load you’d not waste time by hitching him up with a real worker, eh? Of course not. Where’ve you been working?”

“In the kitchen,” bitterly replied Stanley, his hopes now down to zero.

“Then I’d advise you to dig back to the kitchen,” curtly said McPherson.

“But, Mister McPherson, he’s had a row with Gilvey and has got the best of him and he can’t go back there,” exploded Bub, now in a frenzy to clinch the situation before Hatton could arrive.

“What! licked Gilvey,” exclaimed McPherson, his eyes lighting.

“He assaulted me and I only defended myself and in the tussle he fell underneath and cut his head open,” apologized Stanley.